Category Archives: Aesthetics

Jonathan Meades Is Ever So Convincing; Much More Than Brutalism

Aesthetics, Art, Britain, Intellectualism, Socialism, The State

The little I know about Brutalist architecture is enough to make me skeptical of Jonathan Meades’ brilliantly spoken claims for it. This school of architecture seems to have been wedded to The State and, as such, to have taken on its foreboding austerity (expensive and ugly). “Governmentally sanctioned Brutalims” is indeed “the architecture of “cultural welfarism.” But a government-spawned “novelty”? Please!

However, Meades, a Briton of course, is a magnificent advocate for anything, really. His polemics are astounding in both beauty and internal logic. “… a prose style so pugnaciously cultivated, so unpredictably informative, and, enviably often, so extremely funny. …” Meades is indeed a strange experience: You might not agree with his assessment, but you love every moment of it and follow in delight.

On the 1960s cultural output: “A kaleidoscope of polychromatic vacuity.” “Enjoyably witless hedonism.” “A gluppy soap of mysticism …” “New universities busily inventing new disciplines.” Vatican Two decreeing that new churches should be churches in the round, like theaters in the round.”

Bunkers Brutalism and Bloodymindedness Concrete Poetry – Two from MeadesShrine on Vimeo.

*Image courtesy By Aurelien Guichard from London, United Kingdom – National Theatre Uploaded by BaldBoris, CC BY-SA 2.0

Lay Off Ann Coulter’s Good Looks

Aesthetics, Ann Coulter, Pop-Culture

Conservative-minded writers are known to cavil about the asinine worship of youth in this country—a thing that makes for a silly society. But why make older, still-lovely looking ladies feel ashamed for maintaining their good looks?

Fred Reed levels “the most unkindest cut of all,” to quote Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, at Ann Coulter for her youthful appearance.

Miss Ann is herself a curious piece of work. She is in her mid-fifties, but on her book jackets looks like a hot babe of twenty-two. Achieving this must require enough makeup to fill a peanut-butter sandwich, and I suspect that she has worked a couple of copies of Photoshop into smoking ruins. Do we have here a narcissistic attention-freak? A reporter might be a better idea. …

Sure, we’d all give a lot to look like we did when younger. But why diss women who age particularly well? (In this scribe’s case, because of genetics and Guinot.) My own old face has not had a scratch of work done to it and is holding up quite well. As to Ann: You can’t fake that glorious hair and the generally good bone structure; it holds it all up.

Love you, Fred, but lay off Ann’s looks.

“Ann Coulter and the Manufacture of Pedophilia.”

UPDATE II: Celebrity And The #Selfie

Aesthetics, Celebrity, Feminism, Film, Hollywood, Pop-Culture

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Less repulsive than Kim Kardashian’s preoccupation with selfie taking is the fact that she goes unchallenged when depicting her obscene, whorish narcissism as an attempt to come to terms with her body. “Be a little easier on myself,” as she puts it. Kardashian is as heroic as the females mocked in last week’s “Heroism Or Hedonism?”

A voice in the wilderness is the “iconic French actress Catherine Deneuve,” who reminds us that real feminine allure and mystic are not to be found in the “new generation of celebrities addicted to social media.”

“A star is someone who must show themselves only a little and remain discreet. With the introduction of the digital age there is an intrusion of everything, everywhere, all the time,” she said.

“We see a tremendous amount of people who are very famous, with millions of followers, and who have done absolutely nothing.”

“Heroism Or Hedonism?” made similar points with respect to true heroism: it is private and discreet.

Deneuve is on my short list of the few good things produced by France. So is Brigitte Bardot, Rene Guinot and the Musée du Louvre.

UPDATE I (5/11): More for the list: Victor Hugo, Gustave Flaubert, Ravel, Debussy, Degas, Monet, Chagall (not born in France), César Franck (also not born there), and many more. But you get the picture, and the use of humor (I hope) to make a point about a generally insufferable lot.

UPDATE II: Albert Camus, too, WAS WONDERFUL. He was born in Algeria but was French. The French dislike him and prefer that retarded, piece of rotting flesh, Sartre, who recommended ignoring Stalin’s gulag, so as to keep the morale of the workers’ of the world high. Yep. The French …

Miraculously, Bruce Jenner Will Likely Continue To Love Women

Aesthetics, Gender, Pop-Culture, Sex

This is probably the only real Bruce Jenner we’ve ever seen; the rest has been celebrity and reality TV—Mr. Jenner has been embroiled in a vulgar reality show, in which he has been belittled and berated. Jenner’s gender identity is female; his pattern of sexual attraction is to women. The two—gender identity and sexual attraction—are different things. Bruce Jenner felt like a woman trapped in a man’s body. He has, however, always loved women and likely will continue to so do.

That too is a miracle, given the women who surround Mr. Jenner: shallow, plastic, empty, nasty (except the younger girls both of whom were beautiful, until Kylie Jenner, on the right, had plastic surgery. Now only Kendal, on the left, is gorgeous).

The newly deformed Kylie, after alterations, joining her sisters in the practice of self-examination (“selfie” posting):